Identity crises
Loading ...Who am I? This is a question I have often posed myself since I could formulate those words. Not because I had amnesia like Jackie Chan in that god-awful flick but when I was old enough to differentiate between dialects and accents, I figured the dad’s side of the family in the Village spoke totally differently to us folks in Madras. And this was before taking Madras baashai into account.
One of my earliest memories of visiting the paternal relatives in the Village was sitting down for lunch with most of the cousins in one or the other of the aunts’ houses and the first taste of sambhar neatly lifting the roof off my mouth. After losing my fair share of taste buds, I remember screaming for water only for everyone to hoot:
“kaarardha? Appo bus uduma?”
(Sorry – loses essence in translation. Suffice to say I said it was hot and they made fun of the words employed. Simply put, kaaram, uraippu = spicy hot
Apparently, in the Village one must say ‘orakkidhu’ – I had uttered the TamBram equivalent of that, which was found to be incredibly funny. After that, though I tried to watch what I said, it was still a difficult task as those were the only words I knew and I couldn’t come up with different words just to stop them from wetting themselves.
It was during those lonely, puzzling days that I figured my mum and dad came from different communities. As my dad had always spoken like the rest of us at home, I never had realized the difference.
That was when the problem of what I am and where I belonged started. I tried to say it was to the maternal side as I grew up with them, spoke like them, behaved like them, ate like them, and dressed like them, so I should be one of them, right? My school was inhabited predominantly by TamBrams so it was easy for me just to fit in. And I continued to think I was one of them till the day a (maternal) cousin said ‘but you are not Iyengar anyway!’, bursting yet another bubble.
It was confusion time all over again. What the hell am I? Annual trips to the Village reiterated the belief of ‘never the twain shall be met’ and I came back more confused than ever. Being surrounded by proper TamBrams and wanting to belong made me exaggerate the accent and the behaviour and every time it was checked by dad’s remark that I wanted to be a Brahmin. Well, I wanted to belong, that’s what I wanted, without having to choose between one and another. Mum choosing to follow whatever Iyengar traditions she was comfortable with, dad speaking Iyengarese when surrounded by Iyengars added to the layers of confusion. Not knowing much about the paternal culture and background didn’t help me in identifying myself with them either.
This confusion continued for a long, long time, even till my wedding day. When the time came for the wedding pandal to be put outside the gate, I had thought it would be the tricoloured strips of cloth being strung from pillar A to pillar B, like I had seen in most houses nearby. Till mum shushed me and said ‘adhellam non-Brahmins podaradhu!’
I wanted to scream “then what the heck are we?” I was tired of being stuck in the limbo land and desperately wanted a way out.
Well, I found a way out – to far off UK, by way of my Telugu husband. Whose family preferred to highlight my Brahmin roots as it was much more amenable to their clan than the Padayachi dad half.
If I had thought I had left my confusions back in India, I seem to have taken on new ones. Now to which country do I belong? I have been living in England for almost seven years now and it feels home in many ways. But I still do not inherently understand the English and their xenophobia makes it hard to make proper friends. But I am cut off from Madras and India and cannot understand 100% what is happening there – the societal issues, the changing culture, the politics, mega serials….
At the same time, I cannot fall in with Eastenders, the celebrity obsession, the near-zero importance given to academic achievements, the cold shoulder, the prejudice….
Once again, I’m asking myself – who am I? What am I? Where are my loyalties?
Who has the answers?
DG,
Identity crisis can happen for anyone. For some it doesn’t happen at all no matter how much mixing they come across.
http://premalathakombai.blogspot.com/2006/02/identity.html
DG: Prema, thank you for understanding – and your email!
I don’t mean to be rude? Does it really matter? Will your life be truly different (better) if you can slot yourself into some man-made box? I think not. Coming from a regionally mixed marriage and then marrying someone from a different religion has made it too confusing for me to even ask this question of myself… I’m just me….
DG: Rohini – isn’t it the norm to blame everything on the parents? No?
Seriously, I don’t claim to have any rationalisation behind my feeling this way. It just the way it is. Maybe I never had the confidence to say, like you, “i’m just me – sod everything else”.
Lovely post. I don’t get the “bus uduma” part though. Why should the bus run, or not?
DG: Lekhni – it is all in the way you say it? Like ‘karardhu’ sounds like ‘car – dhu’ – hence car and bus etc.
I’ve been thinking about some of these very same things! Despite living in many different places, I know clearly, that I am Tamizh. Even if you get teased up for being ‘Madrasi’ while living in the North, as you grew up, you realise there is a strong culture behind you. But with so many of our generation (incl me) marrying across different languages and communities, one of my biggest worries is that the kids will only speak english…and if you lose your own language, somehow I feel you can’t get into many aspects of the culture…or can you?
DG: Apu, the more layers you add, the further you go away from your original core. You do build on something entirely new, yes, but unfortunately, you also end up moving away from where you started from. Is that a good thing? Where’s the happy medium? Enough for a PhD thesis, eh?
But… couple of my cousins who married guys from other communities – Maharashtrian in one specific instance – have still managed to raise children who are proficient in both the mummy and the daddy tongues. Wonder how I failed spectacularly in that regard!!!
DG,
I completely understand your predicament.
It happens to me very often not because I have a mixed ancestory but my clan seems to be pretty mobile.
I belong to a Pallakad Iyer family born and in Bangalore for three generations. The problem arises when someone asks you where you are from
Me: I am from pallakad
someone: do you speak malayalam?
Me:no speak tamil
someone: so are you from Tamilnadu
Me:no I consider myself a Bangalorean
someone: errrrrrrrgh?!??!?
The problem would continue with my tamil speaking friends who were from Chennai or Trichy where they wouldnt understand half of the words I used and would ask me to rather speak in English
I thought this was confusing enough till the time I had to get married.
Tambram family and hence all attempts at me finding my soulmate was just shot down instantly with one statement “Loveaa ippidi kettu kuttichavaraitiye”. So I decided to take the arranged route
well the problem was most of the girls whose hororscope (not a typo meant to say Horror scope) would match would come from either Delhi or Bombay where we have a huge expat community living.
The first time they would visit us they would say “well you speak a different kind of tamil are you sure your origins are in palakkad cos my daughter doesnt understand this tamil” !!!
Later did I realise all this sun TV watching, Vivek comedy had sort of altered the way we spoke adding more confusion and more to the already murky identity of mine.
KD: boy am I glad there are other folks that feel this way too. Like MM was telling me the other day, as the world shrinks, these confusions will def be on the rise.
First time here.. very interesting post.. Both my DH and I are brahmins.. I am an Iyengar.. he is a Iyer-Iyengar hybrid!!
When I go to his village, I cant understand half of what they say, and they cant understand what I say.. His mom’s family come from near kerala.. so they speak part malayalam… I went to school in CBE with a lot of folsk who made fun of my tamil.. so I never used tamil in school …In college, I had other brahmin friends so dared to speak in tamil. However my tamil is such a confused tamil as a result.. Now my son imbibes that and adds an american accent to it!!!
So there… How confused do you think we are??
This is an excellent post. I thought I was the only confused soul. Boy am I glad to see folks in the same boat, especially Preethi and KD.
I was born in Palaghat, Raised in Bangalore, Trichy and Chennai. Mom’s side – proper Kerala
Dad’s side moved to Chennapatnam. Damn my parents spoke Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil. I could hardly pick up one. The more the people complained my tamil was different, I tried hard to fit in. Tam-Bram, neither was I Tam nor was I Bram, yet I was always thrown in a myriad of Tam-Brams. The schools I went to should have been called “Tam-Bram Vidyalaya”. My neighborhood had just Tam-Brams. I remember vividly when folks would affectionately touch my shoulder (to check my cross belt) and exclaim in shock “Ambi poonool podalaiyaa” ? My mom would make me secret chicken curries and fish fry, without alarming my neighbors.
I thought my problems were over when I came here to the States. I liked the Tam-Bram buddies of mine here. They were after-all boys. They ate all the cows and pigs one could imagine, diligently paid homage to the naked girls and boosted the economy. Come marriage time, my nightmares were to resurface. I was supposed to perform a Brahmin wedding, which meant I had to be naked ( I mean shirtless). I didn’t want to scare my friends and colleagues away in my not even remotely close to B. Pitt’s body. I raised all hell and said I will have to wear a shirt illainaa no wedding
They all readily agreed, I am assuming for the same reason of not embarrassing their family members. Its been four years since. Not once I have been able to make idly and chicken curry or mom’s aapam and stew ( for some reason they pronounce it ishtuuuuu in my village). Since my wife grew up in Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai it is very easy to get along without any cross cultural differences. Until recently when I had seen a post from DG and gone and asked my wife what a kunukku was ?
With our two year old, we try to keep it simple – we speak English. Wifey and I use Tamil as a secret language against him. Pongal, Idly or dosa are never to be seen until Paati or Naani makes any for him. For now – bread, egg, cheese and milk makes our life easy. The lazy parents that we are
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